How can we improve the tackling. I feel like the modern rules are preventing us from drilling this crucial fundamental into our D. Hopefully one of the new defensive staff hires can help teach and get this into our product on the field.

You'd think they'd have the fundementals down by the time they get here - I'm not being critical of what you said, I'm agreeing - its' just that why should our coaches have to spend time teaching what they should have known to get here in the first place? They are defensive players, right?

oj wrote:You'd think they'd have the fundementals down by the time they get here - I'm not being critical of what you said, I'm agreeing - its' just that why should our coaches have to spend time teaching what they should have known to get here in the first place? They are defensive players, right?

Like so many others... tackling is a perishable skill... if it's not practiced, the skills degrade... players take short cuts, develop bad habits. League rules make it damned near impossible to practice these skills... though they really need to be worked...

Too many players like to hit rather than tackle. It makes the highlight reels. In recent years the rules concerning hitting have changed so much the players are caught in multiple minds. If they just learned to tackle and practiced tackling, they'd improve no end

Gibbs4Life wrote:How can we improve the tackling. I feel like the modern rules are preventing us from drilling this crucial fundamental into our D. Hopefully one of the new defensive staff hires can help teach and get this into our product on the field.

This worst flaw I see is a failure to, what coaches call, break down. It's a stutter step that helps prevent whiffing.

I once heard Bill Walsh say it's not what you practice, it's what you emphasize. I bet Marty or Walsh would emphasize the skill of tackling.

Gibbs4Life wrote:How can we improve the tackling. I feel like the modern rules are preventing us from drilling this crucial fundamental into our D. Hopefully one of the new defensive staff hires can help teach and get this into our product on the field.

This worst flaw I see is a failure to, what coaches call, break down. It's a stutter step that helps prevent whiffing.

I once heard Bill Walsh say it's not what you practice, it's what you emphasize. I bet Marty or Walsh would emphasize the skill of tackling.

Gibbs4Life wrote:How can we improve the tackling. I feel like the modern rules are preventing us from drilling this crucial fundamental into our D. Hopefully one of the new defensive staff hires can help teach and get this into our product on the field.

This worst flaw I see is a failure to, what coaches call, break down. It's a stutter step that helps prevent whiffing.

I once heard Bill Walsh say it's not what you practice, it's what you emphasize. I bet Marty or Walsh would emphasize the skill of tackling.

From my observations most teams are bad at tackling save for a few. The Seahawks and 49ers both tackle like pros.

Very few teams tackle well these days. The 49ers and Seahawks both tackle very well.

Main problem with our team is they dive way too much and dont wrap up. I have seen Orakpo do this many times. He dives instead of running through a player while wrapping up.

The ideal mentality should be a swarming gang tackling mentality. A defender should first impead the progress by getting face to face with the ball carrier or get in his path first. If he is close enough wrap and run through him. If not just be in the path of the ball carrier maintaining his gap while others are swarming covering all the other ball carriers paths. If a defender is good enough which most arent they can tackle without any help. Only legends are good enough to disregard any help and make all the tackles on their own.

Yeah, but anybody can practice blindly. Anybody can keep practicing the wrong way. It's not just practice. It's good practice with emphasis on certain keys. The number one key in tackling is to break down. Green Bay lost to SF because a blitzing DB had Kap dead to rights but did not break down.

We whiff on QBs again and again because we clearly do not practice breaking down. We jump at ball fakes. Imagine if while a guy is pump faking we are just breaking down. Then we sack the guy as he prepares to reload. Everybody wants to be a freaking hero. Kinda funny actually. The sack is worth so much more than batting down the pass which is what we are trying to do when we jump for a pump fake.

This is how we can improve our tackling ... by emphasizing the keys and practicing with emphasis on those keys.

Yeah, but anybody can practice blindly. Anybody can keep practicing the wrong way. It's not just practice. It's good practice with emphasis on certain keys. The number one key in tackling is to break down. Green Bay lost to SF because a blitzing DB had Kap dead to rights but did not break down.

We whiff on QBs again and again because we clearly do not practice breaking down. We jump at ball fakes. Imagine if while a guy is pump faking we are just breaking down. Then we sack the guy as he prepares to reload. Everybody wants to be a freaking hero. Kinda funny actually. The sack is worth so much more than batting down the pass which is what we are trying to do when we jump for a pump fake.

This is how we can improve our tackling ... by emphasizing the keys and practicing with emphasis on those keys.

It's not rocket science but it's not just "oh yeah, practice, duh."

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Clearly, a professional coaching staff that is practicing tackling will be focusing on certain concepts... It should not have been necessary for me to specify that, but, apparently, someone is being a bit challenging... What ever... seriously??? Is there anything that you won't argue about?